Aquar­ium diver killed in stingray at­tack

A SIN­GA­POREAN diver has died af­ter be­ing struck on the chest by a stingray in a closed un­der­wa­ter at­trac­tion in the city-state, the aquar­ium’s own­ers said yes­ter­day.

Vet­eran diver Philip Chan, 62, was stung at Un­der­wa­ter World Sin­ga­pore in a “tragic ac­ci­dent” while ready­ing stingrays for trans­fer to an­other aquar­ium, the at­trac­tion’s own­ers Haw Par Cor­po­ra­tion said.

The in­ci­dent brought back mem­o­ries of Aus­tralian celebrity con­ser­va­tion­ist Steve Irwin, who was killed by a stingray barb in the chest in 2006 dur­ing an ex­pe­di­tion off the Great Bar­rier Reef.

The 25-year-old fa­cil­ity on the re­sort is­land of Sen­tosa shut down in June when it could not keep up with newer at­trac­tions, in­clud­ing a big­ger aquar­ium and wa­ter ad­ven­ture park.

Its pink dol­phins, fur seals and ot­ters were moved to the Chime­l­ong Ocean King­dom in Zhuhai, China, one of the largest ma­rine parks in the world, while its other sea crea­tures were still look­ing for new homes, lo­cal me­dia re­ported.

Stingrays are com­monly found in trop­i­cal wa­ters and their barbs, at the end of their tails, are coated in toxic venom which they use to de­fend them­selves when threat­ened.

– STORM and heavy rain warn­ings were is­sued yes­ter­day as pow­er­ful ty­phoon Chaba bar­relled to­ward Ja­pan af­ter lash­ing the south­ern coast of South Korea with winds that trig­gered flash floods and left at least two dead.

The vi­o­lent storm was mov­ing north-north­east off the Tsushima islets chain near Ja­pan’s south­ern Kyushu, pack­ing gusts of up to 180 kilo­me­tres (110 miles) per hour, Ja­pan’s weather agency said.

The Ja­pan Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Agency is­sued warn­ings for heavy rains, high ocean waves and floods, cov­er­ing large swathes of western Ja­pan.

All Nip­pon Air­ways and Ja­pan Airlines have can­celled a com­bined 108 do­mes­tic flights, while Kyodo news agency said some smaller airlines have also put flights on hold.

The Korean Pub­lic Safety Min­istry said 2500 schools had been closed, while tens of thou­sands of homes along the south­ern coast suf­fered power out­ages.

In the ma­jor port city of Bu­san, a labourer was killed when strong winds top­pled a heavy crane, while a man drowned when caught in flood­wa­ters in the south­ern city of Ul­san. Three other peo­ple were re­ported miss­ing in floods.

Dozens of flights in and out of the re­sort is­land of Jeju were can­celled as Chaba bar­relled over the is­land pack­ing gusts of up to 200 kilo­me­tres an hour.

CCTV and mo­bile video footage shot in Ul­san showed cars be­ing swept down flooded streets and a wooden house hav­ing its roof sheared off af­ter slip­ping into a swollen river and be­ing car­ried un­der a low bridge. –

Photo: AFP

South Korean coast guards try to res­cue crew mem­bers of a stranded pas­sen­ger ship in the af­ter­math of ty­phoon Chaba in the south­ern city of Yeosu yes­ter­day.